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This wasn’t the burning he was used to.
When he’d begun to saunter vaguely downwards, it had been a gradual thing. A question here, a whispered doubt there, it had all just…quietly intensified like bubbles forming at the bottom of a soup pot. He remembered the initial simmering, but had become so busy that the blooming heat had passed him by until only the boil of his blood and fury at the so-called Almighty had remained.
There was nothing quiet about his feelings for the angel sputtering in front of him.
And when he closed the gap between them in strides nowhere near as long as the litany he would sing if he could only remember how, the heat that roared within him was unknown. Beyond a boil. His fisted hands clenched around Aziraphale’s collar, fingers digging deep.
He’d witnessed plenty of other people’s kisses, in his clandestine quest to get to know humanity over the millennia. Not that he’d sought that sort of thing out for himself, mind. If films were anything to go by, there was supposed to be an instant of shock but no more than that, followed by shaking breaths and undulating heads moving to and away, to and away. Sometimes tongues were involved, but he’d always privately wondered how his forked situation might lead to a tangle more embarrassing than exciting.
Aziraphale had not, apparently, read the script.
The angel had not moved past the ‘instant of shock’ bit. Crowley’s lips were pressed to his with an iron desperation, pulsing around a molten core. Pleading. Aziraphale’s hands jerked about as they did when he was torn between options, rooted to indecision. He’d never been keen to explore his hidden doubts in any arena, preferring instead to keep them neatly tucked away in a metaphorical trunk that was then carefully obscured by the rare and heavy tomes stacked atop it. Doubting was for demons. It was something angels simply Didn’t Do.
Or weren’t supposed to do, anyway. And if they did, they weren’t to speak of it. All would be revealed by the Almighty in time, surely, yes? So he added more books to the pile, and wore foundationless smiles, and changed the subject.
His hands, grabbing at air, could not reach the books. His lips, rather distressingly occupied, could not force a smile or lead the conversation elsewhere. How was he supposed to find any words when his mind was suffused with light?
Tentatively, fearfully, his hands brushed Crowley’s skinny shoulders. Soft as a featherfall from an injured wing.
The thing about knowing someone for millennia, really, was that you got used to them. Their Arrangement had meant their paths were meant to continue colliding. They’d saved each other more times than could be counted. Salvation by way of God had seemed less and less frequent for humanity and angels alike as the inexorable march of Time strode ceaselessly on. But Crowley had been…constant. Impossible to get rid of, at times.
I need you!
Aziraphale shuddered. His hands were finding forgotten angelic strength. Crowley let out something akin to a snarl.
Who knew his salvation would be dressed in such an endearingly garish waistcoat?